Long distance friendships are made a little easier with Skype. (ebayink/Flickr Creative Commons)

I know that most commuters live in off-campus housing or have apartments close enough to school and don’t actually still live with their parents, but I’m not one of them. My connection to my hometown is strong, but I feel like that’s not necessarily just a commuter thing. It’s heightened by the fact that I still live there, but the average reader might understand what I mean about ties to home. Specifically one tie whose name is Mikayla.

I’m hoping that you all have a Mikayla in your life. Whether you became friends late in high school or were friends pretty much out of the womb, I hope that everyone has that connection to life before college. It would be great if I could tell you that we grew up together and were best friends for our whole lives and then went to UConn together, but that isn’t the case.

We became friends my junior year of high school and she was a year older than me. We found that our personalities just matched well together, and that made us continue the friendship even after she moved to Long Island, New York for college. Though we can go for a while without talking, whenever we connect again it’s like we never stopped. I have a few other friends that live close to me that I love hanging out with, but I still consider Mikayla my closest friend.

Recently, we decided to have Skype dates on Saturdays, which made me think to write this article. There has to be at least one student on campus that has a friend they left behind when real life started happening. Though farther apart now, the friendship still exists in the background, always there for when you need it. There’s a lot of talk about long-distance relationships, but what about the average friendship that’s now forced to be online, if it happens at all? What about that?

Like I mentioned before, Mikayla and I can go long stretches of time without talking. Honestly, the best friendships are like that. Neither is too upset by it, because both understand that life just happens. As soon as you talk again, you’re right where you left off. If you’re reading this article and feeling nostalgic for a certain friend, I’d suggest reaching out to them. There’s something about that friend that you can just vent to, or laugh with, or just have on the phone for moral support when homework is just too much for you. Those friendships, even when separated by many miles and differing life paths, don’t actually die out. They’re just waiting to be rekindled.

While Mikayla and I are both making our way in the world, we still make time for each other, even if it’s not as often as when we’re both back home. No matter where each of us end up, I’m hoping that stays the same.